Understanding symbols and symbolic rituals requires the interpreter to possess five qualities or conditions, without which symbols will be lifeless to him, and he dead to them.

The first quality is sympathy; not the first in time, but the first as I am listing them, in order of simplicity. The interpreter must feel sympathy for the symbol he proposes to interpret.

The second is intuition. Sympathy may aid it if it already exists, but cannot create it. Intuition is understood as that kind of understanding with which one senses what lies beyond the symbol, even without seeing it. The third is intelligence. Intelligence analyzes, breaks down, and reconstructs the symbol on another level; however, it must do so with the understanding that, fundamentally, all remains the same. I would not call it erudition, as one might in the study of symbols, but rather the ability to connect what is above with what aligns below. This cannot be achieved if sympathy hasn’t suggested that connection, or if intuition hasn’t established it. Then intelligence, naturally discursive, will become analogical, and the symbol may be interpreted.